Reserve Bank of New Zealand as expected

  • sees official cash rate at 1.75 pct in march 2019
  • sees official cash rate at 1.75 pct in dec 2019
  • sees official cash rate at 1.84 pct in dec 2020
  • sees official cash rate at 2.36 pct in march 2022
  • sees annual cpi 1.7 pct by march 2020
  • sees twi nzd at around 73.3 in march 2020
  • says to keep cash rate expansionary for considerable period
  • says core cpi expected to gradually rise to 2 pct mid-point
  • says monetary policy expects to keep the ocr at this level through 2019 and to 2020
  • says the direction of next cash rate move could be up or down
  • says employment is near max sustainable level
  • says continued supportive monetary policy necessitated by cpi being below 2 pct mid-point
  • says risk of a sharper downturn in trading partner growth has heightened
  • upside and downside risks to inflation

NZD popped on the announcement. RBNZ not as dovish as it was thought they would be. Certainly not hawkish, just not as dovish as they might have been.

Plenty of shorts buying back into the kiwi. Sellers lying in wait soon though

Full Statement is here:

more to come